Help with a printer problem.

woof woof

woof woof

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I've changed from a HP printer to an Epson R2880 and it's great except that my pictures are too dark. They look fine on the camera screen, fine on the pc, fine when printed on the HP but just too dark when printed on the Epson.

It all looks to be set up correctly and the paper type (Epson premium glossy) is correct so what am I doing wrong?
 
Thanks.

I've just downloaded the latest driver and it's just the same.

Lap top isn't calibrated but would that affect brightness? I thought that only set colours?

With the HP I didn't have to brighten things up before printing, they just looked pretty much as they did on the pc. I'm happy enough with the colours and the only problem seems to be that the prints are just too dark, a problem that didn't exist with the HP. I did try some HP paper before buying Epson paper and I can't remember if the prints were too dark or not, they were generally horrible though and I was hoping the Epson paper would clear everything up.

So far I'm pretty stuck.
 
Ideally you should calibrate you screen. This will give you better results. The problem probably is that you screen is too bight compared with the viewing environment.

OK quick and dirty fix. In the Epson dialogue box are colour controls. Simply increase the brightness control. It's a bit hit and miss but is better than nothing.
 
If the screen was too bright the prints would have come out too dark with my HP printer. The dark prints are a new issue with the new printer and paper.

I can't see a brightness control in the printer software at the moment but I'll keep looking.

Thanks.
 
I'm on a Mac so it may be different on a PC, but the controls should be under advanced settings in print options.
 
you really need a hardware calibration tool. Spyder, ColorMonkey etc.
 
Thanks again guys for taking the time to reply.

"you really need a hardware calibration tool. Spyder, ColorMonkey etc"

I thought that these set colours, do they set overall brightness? This has only happened since changing the printer (and driver obviously) and paper.

There aren't any brightness controls under Advanced Options and everything looks ok to me so I've sent Epson tec support an email.

Thanks again.
 
woof woof said:
Thanks.

I've just downloaded the latest driver and it's just the same.

Lap top isn't calibrated but would that affect brightness? I thought that only set colours?

With the HP I didn't have to brighten things up before printing, they just looked pretty much as they did on the pc. I'm happy enough with the colours and the only problem seems to be that the prints are just too dark, a problem that didn't exist with the HP. I did try some HP paper before buying Epson paper and I can't remember if the prints were too dark or not, they were generally horrible though and I was hoping the Epson paper would clear everything up.

So far I'm pretty stuck.
Click to expand...
Calibration show you have to set up the contrast and brightness first you can do this yourself with a grey scale image Let me see if I got one I post it you will need to adjust your monitor so you can see all of the squares from white to black
CAN you see every tone in this image ?
bst14grau.dp1,22.jpg
 
woof woof said:
Thanks again guys for taking the time to reply.

"you really need a hardware calibration tool. Spyder, ColorMonkey etc"

I thought that these set colours, do they set overall brightness? This has only happened since changing the printer (and driver obviously) and paper.

There aren't any brightness controls under Advanced Options and everything looks ok to me so I've sent Epson tec support an email.

Thanks again.
Click to expand...

Well with the color spyder 2 you have to reset the brightness and contrast controls to there default settings before calibration so I'm guessing yes it does effect brightness and contrast. I do know that letting LR manage the color in combination with calibration and the correct printer profile I get a good match between monitor and print.

You will always get a little difference in brightness as you are veiwing a transmited light image (monitor) v a reflected light image (print).
 
My prints were coming out very dark when i first got the R2880. I'm using a Macbook Pro and by default the luminance it set to well over 300cd (far too bright). After calibration i now work with it at around the 120cd mark and the white balance around 6500k. My screen now matches my prints much better.

Also double profiling will affect your prints resulting in dark muddy prints.
 
A mate of mine is going through the exact same thing with his r800 which was printing fine until he upgraded both windows and the epson driver (i think we are now on the third update from the one that was ok) We have tried using different profiles, calibrating the screen using different papers etc etc. In the end he took some of his shots into a high street store to print and they come out fine, just like the monitor shows however the r800's are way off.

This seems to be a common problem with loads of references to it on the net. I know for really accurate reproduction all the calibration and setting work should be done but I just plugged in my Canon pressed print and bingo print that was very near to the original.

The epson thing is ridiculous, its just way to dark. We have spent hours on this and are still no further on. If anyone has a solution on this "bring it on" my mate is close to going out and buying a canon :nono:
 
woof woof said:
Thanks again guys for taking the time to reply.

"you really need a hardware calibration tool. Spyder, ColorMonkey etc"

I thought that these set colours, do they set overall brightness? This has only happened since changing the printer (and driver obviously) and paper.

There aren't any brightness controls under Advanced Options and everything looks ok to me so I've sent Epson tec support an email.

Thanks again.
Click to expand...

Spyder pro allows a luminace and ambient calibration
 
evotwo said:
A mate of mine is going through the exact same thing with his r800 which was printing fine until he upgraded both windows and the epson driver (i think we are now on the third update from the one that was ok) We have tried using different profiles, calibrating the screen using different papers etc etc. In the end he took some of his shots into a high street store to print and they come out fine, just like the monitor shows however the r800's are way off.

This seems to be a common problem with loads of references to it on the net. I know for really accurate reproduction all the calibration and setting work should be done but I just plugged in my Canon pressed print and bingo print that was very near to the original.

The epson thing is ridiculous, its just way to dark. We have spent hours on this and are still no further on. If anyone has a solution on this "bring it on" my mate is close to going out and buying a canon :nono:
Click to expand...

Sounds like a profile problem. Very easily sorted by way of a custom profile Buy paper from a company that provides these free like Fotospeed and Permajet. Ilford allow you to download profiles too but a custom profile makes a huge difference.

The problem you are having may be just the same with the Canon!
 
I must admit to being baffled.

I keep coming back to the fact that the prints from my previous HP looked just like what I see on the screen so this leads me to think that it's a problem with either the printer or the driver software associated with it but I don't know what the problem is as everything in the printer driver setup looks ok to me.

I'm getting near to giving up as all this faffing about has cost a small fortune in paper and ink. If Epson tech support don't reply or can't help I think I'll bite the bullet, write off the loss and start again because I'm getting nowhere at the moment and it's frustrating.

PS - Paper from a specialist and a profile might be worth a try if I don't get anywhere with Epson.
 
EOS_JD said:
Sounds like a profile problem. Very easily sorted by way of a custom profile Buy paper from a company that provides these free like Fotospeed and Permajet. Ilford allow you to download profiles too but a custom profile makes a huge difference.

The problem you are having may be just the same with the Canon!
Click to expand...

You would think so wouldn't you but honestly we have tried the custom profiles and no different. Further more I can print plug r800 into my imac and dark prints, I plug my canon in and prints are fine. Our next port of call is to change all the cartridges and look at trying to get our hands on the old print driver.

Like woof woof we are baffled as nothing stacks up it just doesn't make sense.

Thanks for the pointer and sorry woof woof for jumping into your thread
 
My HP 8250 prints way darker than my screen too. The screen seems bright (lots of forum members say my shots look dark to them) but I cannot for the life of me adjust the brightness (its a Dell XPS One all-in-one desktop machine running Vista). The brightness controls on the keyboard don't do anything and when I try to calibrate using a Huey Pantone Pro I can get the colours to look fine but not the contrast or brightness. I've taken to adding half a stop to all my shots when I print them, which is less than ideal.
 
"Thanks for the pointer and sorry woof woof for jumping into your thread"

Hey, no promblem. In fact in a strange way it's good to know I'm not alone! :)
 
I've just printed out a couple of pictures that I last printed out before changing the cartridges (with the correct Epson ones) and driver. One is a shallow dof shot of roses and the other is a beach scene.

The beach scene is turned from a bright sunny day into a shot that looks like it was taken at dusk but the flower shot is much much worse. It's darker but there's something else going on beyond that. The fine detail in the petals and the subtle graduation of colour is completely gone and replaced with solid colour.

Frankly I'm frustrated and gutted. This printer wasn't exactly cheap and it's output at this point is completely and utterly unusable. It's definitely worse since I changed the ink cartridges and the driver although obviously I still can not say what the problem actually is.

I don't want to bin this printer but the fact is that I seem to be flogging a dead horse here and just pouring money into ink cartridges and unusable test prints with no result.

What rubs salt into the wounds is that this printer gets glowing reviews. I don't want to use guesswork and overly lighten picture for printing so if I don't have a blinding flash of inspiration or if Epson tech support can't help I suppose the only option left is to bin it and buy something else.

Downer!!!! :crying:
 
Hi Woof Woof

Taking this step by step

First How old is the printer
Second has it ever printed correctly
Third Genuine or none genuine inks
Last Settings being used
 
"First How old is the printer
Second has it ever printed correctly
Third Genuine or none genuine inks
Last Settings being used"

Hi,

The printer is about a year old.

Yes, the first prints on Epson paper were good, better than my previous HP.

Genuine inks. I've since had to order replacements twice from Amazon and I think that they've all been replaced now but definitely with genuine (as far as I know) Epson inks. All of the part numbers and packaging have looked genuine.

Last settings? no great change apart from the new driver loaded yesterday (and of course Vista has been updated numerous times and I suppose that no one knows what it's up to when it updates) and although I did look at all of the options I could see the only ones I've changed have been from "Fine Art" to "Photography" just to see if that helped so it may be worthwhile if I change them back again after the last disastrous prints today.

Although I've had this printer about a year I've actually done very little printing and even less successful printing. The first batch was on HP paper and was terrible. The next batch were on Epson Premium Glossy and were ok but ink cartridges started to run out as error messages and garbled prints ate up a lot of paper and ink and I've learned from that and now only put photo paper in it one sheet at a time so it can't waste a whole hopper full. All in all I've probably managed about 20 successful A4 prints and one A3 so there has been an awful lot of wastage, both paper and ink.

I never got these dark prints from my HP and the only reason I ditched it was that I got a large number of feed problems leading to only half the shot being printed on the paper. The Epson doesn't seem to suffer from feed problems and if I could only get the same quality I got from the first batch of prints I'd be ecstatic.

Thanks to everyone who's taken the time to reply and help.
 
There are so many references to this problem out there

Some of these might help you a little some are mac related but do apply

Also as Goffski says double profiling seems to come up a lot

This might be useful to use as a test card

http://www.photo-i.co.uk/Reviews/printers/images/Test.jpg

You will have this link to your epson support page but I will list it again just in case others require

http://www.epson.co.uk/Store/Printers-and-All-in-Ones/Epson-Stylus-Photo-R2880/Drivers-Support?

These might have some relevant points

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t32443.html
http://forums.adobe.com/message/2233149
http://forum.fourthirdsphoto.com/showthread.php?t=50756
http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage/

I can't find a reference to what os you are using but it maybe worth searching out an older driver and rolling it back to see if that makes a difference. If you are on a mac you could try the Gutenprint 5.2.4 driver or even trial the PrintFab driver (this is what we are going to do with the r800) after that I think you would most likely be best using a paper and profile from a third party and tweaking.

Its very frustrating, :bang::bang: like you say such a lot of money to just bin.

Good luck (y)
 
woof woof said:
I've changed have been from "Fine Art" to "Photography"
Click to expand...
Ah now I not know where you set this BUT if it is in your printer setting any you are double colour managing your photo. You need to TURN OFF all printer controls as I have said before.
If you don’t you are setting up all your colours and brightness only to tell the printer to do what it wants to with it.
 
The problem is you are not really giving enough information for anyone to give a informed answer or to discount user error so you can say it is the printer itself that is at fault.

So I'll ask the questions again that other have asked and you have not answered.:)

1- Are you letting the printer manage the colours or the third party software (if you are not just using the epson program) which brings me to the second question if applicable.

2- Which software are you printing thorough (LR, PS Elements etc) and what settings are you using?
 
Thanks, I'll have another go at it this evening. :)
 
Hi all,

I can't see an option for turning off the options but to be honest I think I'm suffering from brain fade as I've spent quite some time on this.

I've tried all of the options and combinations that I can see to no effect. Pictures which printed out fine when the printer was new are now noticeably darker and there's a loss of fine detail.

I keep coming back to the thought that I shouldn't have to do any of this as once upon a time the printer worked and I certainly haven't altered anything before the last couple of days. I'm pretty convinced that it's a variation in ink or some Vista or Epson set up problem that's occurred without my input or help.

I've had a reply from Epson but although there's a name on it I think it's an automated response as it's pretty obvious from the questions they've asked that they haven't read my original email. Anyway, I've replied so I'll see what comes back.

I'm almost out of paper now and I've decided that I'm not ploughing any more money into this. Not even another box of paper. If Epson can't suggest anything the printer is history and I'll never ever buy another Epson product. Photography is my hobby not spending hours night after night wasting ink and paper on test prints trying to figure out how to get a decent print.

Thanks all for your time, it's appreciated.
 
Fixed!!!! - Well, sort of...

I decided to delete everything and reinstall it. The theory being that sometimes software settings, installations and updates may actually look ok but actually aren't what they appear to be. I also went into BIOS and loaded default settings.

The result is that things are very much improved. I wont say that they are perfect as some colours, for example the sand in the beach shot, are a little darker than they appear on the screen but the other test shot of the roses looks great and the fine detail is once again visible.

I really can't say what the problem was or why it occurred as I hadn't changed any settings until a couple of days ago so I can only assume that an "update" changed something or something just changed of its own accord. Not the Windows based software would ever do that! ;)

Thanks for everyone's help.
 
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